My (unexpected) Journey to the Heart of Mary, Mother of Christ Jesus

This is the first article in series of an unintentional eight-year pilgrimage I took that led to my baptism in the Jordan River

By Robert Hudson Westover

Hundreds, no thousands of little white pieces of paper seemed to magically cling to the stones of the long wall with the occasional note falling off in the light breeze among the tall trees on this mountainside property.

With a modest stone built, two-room house and its very own artesian well providing water up a steep mountain (which seemed nearly impossible) this wasn’t any other property either in its location, on Mt. Koressos above the ruins of Ephesus, Turkey, or its purported former owner, Mary, the mother of Christ Jesus.

That’s right. The Virgin Mother, or as Catholic’s refer to her, Mary the Mother of God lived here.

And we, a gathering of folks from a cruise of Greece and Turkey, were unintentional guests. In fact, when exiting our cruise ship and boarding the bus as the sun rose over the small port town of Kusadasi, we thought we were going to see the ancient "ghost town" of Ephesus, once the third largest city in the Roman Empire. But our tour guide suggested we first visit the site of “Mother Mary” as the gates to enter the ruins of Ephesus had still not opened.

At the time I was not Catholic--the faith of my husband, Tom. However, Tom had no idea that this holy site even existed and was as surprised as me and our newest traveling friends, Randy and Charlotte, when told of the surprise stop.

As we entered the front approach to the house our tour guide pointed out the “miracle well” where Mary would have drawn water and said that the well "proved to be a powerful piece of evidence" that the property was indeed the site of Mary’s last earthly home. The reason being a nun in the late 19^th century. This nun had had a vision that this precise location in the mountains surrounding Ephesus was were Mary had been brought to live when John, the only disciple not to disavow Jesus during his trial and crucifixion, took Mary to protect her.

An ancient icon of Mary the Mother of Jesus. 
The blue cross on the left was purchased at
the House of the Virgin Mary, Turkey.
(Photo credit: Robert Westover

The Vatican Curia staffers are renowned for not jumping to conclusions on any subject, so it was decades before the site was investigated. The big hesitancy being: How could Mary live on a mountainside with no running water? 

Upon investigating, not only was an artesian well discovered, but so were the foundations of a two-room house.

I come from a family with a strong interest in history either for amateur or professional purposes. In both cases one learns to be skeptical of any claim even when recorded over centuries let alone one based on a vision. 

However, to be taken seriously, at least for historians, some clear proof needs to exist and with the case of both the well and the house, it’s about as much evidence as can ever be hoped for with a lost trail of records especially after the passage of nearly two millennia.  

So I began to accept that, indeed, this claim should be taken seriously and respected. So I did. I took the que from Tom and with great reverence walked through the rebuilt rooms of the home-now-shrine and watched Tom as he lit a candle in prayer. In fact, Tom’s piety inspired both Randy and me to do the same and three candles were lit in gardens just outside the “House of Mother Mary.”

As we excited the grounds of the shrine, we walked past the long wall of prayers. Looking at the hope, sadness, and devotion in the eyes of those, including Tom, who put a note in one of the many tiny crevasses I pulled from my pocket a little translucent blue cross I bought as we were walking into the compound, and I too said a prayer.

Little did I know but that day would begin a journey of mystical revelations of such profundity that I would humble ego, all that I had been raised to believe, all that I had rationally learned, and fall at the feet of God.

A Westover Family History with Queen Elizabeth II.

By Robert Hudson Westover

Like most families with Anglo-Saxon roots we Westovers grew up with a profound respect for Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II. I mean mom had several coffee table books celebrating the British Royal Family! And, when in the early 1980s, my brother, Mark, got to “sign” both Queen Elizabeth and Philip, the Prince Consort (her husband) onto the backlot of 20th Century Fox the family was impressed with such a brush with “The Queen!”

Letter sent to me from
Buckingham Palace

Years later, I co-authored a book about the ocean liner SS United States and sent the Queen a copy to which I received a reply from one of her Ladies-in-Waiting on Buckingham Palace letterhead telling me how “Her Majesty” was interested in learning about the plight of the great American ship that took the Transatlantic speed record from the HMS Queen Mary!

Although I never actually met Queen Elizabeth,
apparently Lord Westover has--indeed! 

Then, I had my “brush” with the Queen. It was at NASA Goddard Space Center and Her Majesty was touring the facility. I worked just down the road and thought I would head over to see if too could catch a glimpse of the world’s queen. As luck would have it I got that glimpse as Queen Elizabeth’s limo drove right passed me and I got to wave like a true smitten fan at a little old lady dressed in a yellow dress. I’d like to say we made eye contact (I was that close) but I’ve never been a good liar so I gave up fibbing years ago!

Now the World’s Queen is gone and except for strange reoccurring dreams, I never actually met her. But as the Fates would have it I did meet a now Monarch of Great Britain when he was the Prince of Wales. It happened at the Common Good City Farm in DC. My husband, Tom, called one morning to tell me that Prince Charles was making a visit to the collective farm near our house in Washington, DC. So I walked over and sure enough there he was! I shook his hand and we had a brief conversation about Climate Change.

There are no accidents.

God Bless the Late Queen and God Save her son, King Charles III!

Below is a photos taken of the Future King Charles III in Washington, DC (Photo Credit: Robert Westover):

King Charles III as the Prince of Wales

Below meeting a Future King:

Me shaking the hand of Prince Charles now 
King Charles III 
(Courtesy Photo Common Good City Farm)

Celebrating Smokey Bear!!! My Livestream with Darley Newman!

I’ve "Impressed" Everywhere, Man -- 40 Years of Making Headlines

By Robert Hudson Westover

What does it mean to be seen, read or heard by over one billion people? Well, apparently not much--or much. 

I say this because as I completed a bibliography (of sorts) of my published works, broadcasts, and newspaper quotes, I soon realized that with the coin of the realm of what I do for a living in public relations, media hits and impressions, I have, well, somewhat conquered the world. I mean from just 1999 to 2000 my media impressions alone where over 100 million!

Like Johnny Cash, "I've been everywhere, man.”

Yet, unlike the country music legend, no one knows my name, man. Truth is if I were to get hit (the bad kind of hit) by a meteor doing yardwork the headlines would read: local man killed by meteor. Not, “man who did all this amazing, fun and exciting stuff”—you know him, right?

Robert in the New York Times,
Easter Sunday, 1999

Robert standing next to a
Smokey Bear sign in
Griffith Park, Los Angeles

So, all this begs the question: Why do so many of us in the public relations world (and its cousin profession, advertising) desire that brass ring of fame--of recognition?

And we do.

I guess it’s the desire to be relevant, immortal. Right? I mean, we’re all going to go from this amusement park called Planet Earth sooner or later—even if we can all live more than 100 years--someday our number comes up and we’re escorted out of the place--with most of us leaving as if we had never been here at all.

I did have that moment of feeling relevant once and it was, well, meteoric. It happened at work. A new intern had started for the summer. She had come in from Los Angeles and me also being a native Los Angelino I went over to introduce myself. As I welcomed her to the shop I said, “Hi, I’m Robert Westover and I work on…” at that moment she looked like she had seen a ghost. I had to asked her if everything was ok—I mean she was literally shaking. She said yes everything was ok and then explained to me that an article I had written about conservation vs preservation in managing our national forests and grasslands had inspired her to follow a career in wilderness land management!

So perhaps this is why we carve our names into those proverbial trees or want to have a building, park bench, or something named after us. It’s our hope, I think, that future generations might stumble on one of our achievements and connect the dots to get an outline of who and what we were and how we added to the Autobiography of Us.

Now I can see why I have done a lot of carving on trees. Maybe I might even have a billion more carved by the time I’m escorted out of Planet Earth having been “everywhere, man.”

My Bibliography and How I Came Up With Over One Billion Impressions

The list below is by far not exhaustive of all hits and impressions my news stories have generated over the past 40 years. In fact, none of my media awareness campaigns where my name isn’t mentioned appear below.

I’ve organized my major media awareness and personal achievement third-party validation* reach into nine categories:

·        The SS United States awareness campaign (1998 to 2005),

·        Stories related to my service in the United State Marine Corps (2004 to 2006),

·        My historic run for Congress in 2000 (as the first openly Gay man in Virginia’s history),

·        My time as a ballet dancer and actor (1982 to 1992),

·        My husband and my LGBTQ activist work (2012 to 2015),

·        My performance art character, Lord Westover, and other royalty related stories (2010 to present),

·        My articles/social media livestreams with the USDA Forest Service (2007 to present),

·       My work in bringing awareness to the importance of the Digital Millennium Copy Right Act (1999 to 2000),   

      Miscellaneous: Jackie Kennedy connection, book credits, career promotion articles, movie, TV and other videos.

A photo seen around the world of Robert and Tom
taken on the day the US Supreme Court ruled in
favor of Gay marriage equality. This was the lead
photo on the Huffington Post that day. 
(Courtesy photo, Huffington Post)

I need to point out that many of my hits and impression happened when the Internet age was just getting started (or before the Internet even existed!) so the reach was much more limited. For instance, before the ubiquitous use of Internet search engines the New York Times, like all major newspapers, could count its possible impression by its subscribership x 3 has it was estimated that up to 3 people would share a story via hardcopy in those olden days. In fact, this is exactly how those of us in the Public Relations world calculated the worth of a hit to our clients.

Robert's first news story

Now, with something like 20 million subscribers, and the ability to easily send a story to reach far more than 3 people per subscriber, the impressions generated by the New York Times is potentially well over 100 million. It is for this reason you’ll notice that my hits in the New York Times, that were not picked up by its syndicate, were in the several millions vs the syndicate pickups that exceeded 75 million impressions—but would now be in the hundreds of millions. It’s a little confusing for sure!

By far the largest media story I was ever part of happened in June of 2015 when the US Supreme Court ruled in favor of Gay and Lesbians having the legal right to marry nationally. The side story of my marriage of 15 years (at the time--we're now at 22 years and counting!) to my husband, Tom Fulton, was picked up by nearly every major media outlet in the US and by the Agence France-Presse (AFP), the oldest and largest media outlet in the world. With bureaus in over 100 countries the AFP’s potential impressions exceed 2 billion. I cut this figure to 500 million as many of the dozens of newspapers and broadcast news stations that picked up the story internationally were the English editions as was the case in both China and India.

And just for fun I added my book sales and my acting career “hits” as they certainly deserve some mention, though the impressions are difficult to calculate.

National/International Broadcasts:

CNN (SS United States Foundation, 1999) 15 million impressions

ABC World News Tonight (SS United States Foundation, 2000) 20 million impressions

BBC World News (SS United States Foundation, 2000) 350 million impressions

PBS New Hour (LGBT issues 2015) 10 million impressions

AFP (LGBT Issues 2015 – Was picked up and broadcast internationally in dozens of news stations and newspapers as well as being picked up by Getty Images.) 500 million impressions

PBS News Hour (Capitol Christmas Tree 2015) 10 million impressions

Op Eds and other published pieces:

Soundings Magazine (SS United States Foundation, 1999)

Westmoreland Times (SS United States Foundation, 2000)

Letters to the Editor:

Christian Science Monitor (Ballet 1990) 100 thousand impressions

New York Times (SS United States Foundation, 2004) 3 million impressions

USA Today (SS United States Foundation, 2000) 5 million impressions

Features/Articles/Mentions in Newspapers:

Morro Bay Sun (Ballet, 1981)

San Luis Obispo Tribune (Ballet, 1981)

Associated Press (Chicago Sun Times—SS United States Foundation, 1998) 2 million impressions

Washington Post (job promotion/Arnold Worldwide, 1999) 1 million impressions

Washington Post (Run for Congress, 2000) 1 million impressions

Wired Magazine (DMCA cover story, 2001) 3 million impressions

Maritime Magazine (SS United States Foundation, 2003)

Honolulu Star Bulletin (SS United States Foundation, 2003)

Seattle Times (SS United States Foundation, 2003)

Readers Digest (USMC, 2005) 100 million impressions

Washington Post (Washington, DC ANC work, 2005) 1 million impressions

Washington Post (Grand Mother’s obituary —appeared first in the San Diego Times Union, 2007) 1.5 million impressions

USA Today (Real Estate Issues, 2009) 5 million impressions

Washington Post (Lord Westover/State of the Union Contest, 2010) 1 million impressions

Yahoo News (Royal Wedding/William and Kate, 2011) 3 million impressions

Christian Science Monitor (Lord Westover at John Stewart Rally, 2010) 100,000 impressions

South Tahoe News (Forest Service, Fire story, 2014)

TSI Magazine (Forest Service antique furniture story, 2021)

The Patriot (Forest Service fire story, 2021)

Roanoke Times (also appeared in Advent News and Opera News Forest Service fall colors, 2021)

Quotes in Articles of Major National and International Media Outlets:

New York Times (SS United States Foundation--Save the SSUS–1999 front page national section and entire syndicate including Dallas Morning News, Detroit Free Press and the Times Herald) 75 million impressions

New York Times (SS United States Foundation), Visit to New Port News in Metro section)—1999) 2 million impressions

New York Times (SS United States Foundation, 2003 NCL buys SSUS/Front page national section entire syndicate including the Times Herald) 10 million impressions

New York Times (SS United States Foundation--Commodore Anderson obit– 2004) 4 million impressions

Newsday (SS United States Foundation – 1999)

Newsday (SS United States Foundation, Book – 2002)

Philadelphia Inquirer (SS United States Foundation, 1999 – 2004) 500 thousand impressions

Orange County Register (SS United States Foundation, 2002-2006) 300 thousand impressions

Wall Street Journal (USMC 2004) 6 million impressions

Huffington Post (LGBTQ issues – lead picture 2015) 12 million impressions

CBS News (LGBTQ Issues 2015) 15 million impressions

Yahoo News (LGBTQ issues 2015) 3 million impressions

Muck Racker (Stories written about the USDA Forest Service—not exhaustive)

Books:

SS United States, Fastest Ship in the World (Turner) sold over 20,000 copies

Lessons in Nobility (self-published) sold over 1000 copies

Nobility Lessons for Dummies (self-published) sold over 10,000 copies

Academic Recommendations/Scholastic References:

Course Hero (Forest Service – Conservation vs Preservation)

Course Hero (LGBT+ Issues)

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review (Forest Service -- Conservation vs Preservation)

A Man and His Ship – The Story of America’s Greatest Naval Architect (SS United States Foundation reference)

Janet, Jackie and Lee (Jackie Kennedy bio where I am both quoted and referenced)

Jackie: Public, Private, Secret (Jackie Kennedy bio where I am both quoted and referenced)

Movies/TV/Livestreams/YouTube:

IMDb (entertainment listing) 

Uncle Joe Shannon (MGM/Actor -- 1978)

Love Thy Neighbor (ABC/Actor -- 1982)

MCI (national ad campaign/actor--1993)

Historic run for Congress (News 8, Washington, DC)

DNC National Convention in Los Angeles (News 3 LA -- DNC spokesman, 2000)

History of Veteran’s Day (History Channel/highlighted--2004)

Meet Robert Hudson Westover (Faces of the Forest Service, 2016)

Woodsy Owl’s 50^th Birthday (Forest Service livestream)

Pride Month (Forest Service livestream)

JFK's Summer White House (You tube video that features Hugh D. "Yusha" Auchincloss, Jackie Kennedy's beloved stepbrother.) 

Smokey Bear’s 78^th Birthday (Ad Council livestream)

*Third Party Validation is a term used in public relations to emphasis the importance of a media outlet selecting to broadcast a story without being paid to do so by the firm or author. Unlike paying for advertising space, something anyone can do, third party validation means one has had to convince an editorial board that the story is worth being disseminated to the public.